Auditory Incontinence

This weekend I sat next to another Mom while our daughters played together at a birthday party. She's a stay-at-home-mom just like me. She is also one of Sabrina's Girl Scout Troop Leaders, coaches softball and basketball, active in the school's PTA, volunteers for several other school related functions, as well as our church. She made me tired just talking to her. Did I mention she has 4 kids? She's one of those Moms that you just want to hate, but she's so unbelievably sweet and kind on top of it all, you can't help but like her despite the fact that she'll volunteer for almost anything.

I, on the other hand, will never inspire that kind of hatred. Unless someone envies my lack of organizational skills and devil may care attitude toward housecleaning.

My one concession to volunteerism, is the school's emergency phone tree. I sign up for it every year. I've only been required to make phone calls twice now; once last year when the school district called a late 2 hour delay, when every other school district in the area was capable of detecting the 11 inches of snow at 5:00 a.m., and today when the school district decided to dismiss early for bad weather that apparently only they are aware of since my roads are dry as a bone and every other school district has completed a full school day.

I have been given an envelope containing a note card for each child in Sabrina's class. Each card is meant to have a list of 4 phone numbers and/or contacts for each child that can be reached in just such an emergency. It's not unusual that I have to call all 4 (or more) numbers in order to reach someone. Sometimes it is a someone that had no idea they were listed on this card, and have no idea why I am calling them. So while this particular act of volunteering occurs rarely, it takes up a significant amount of time and usually gives me a thundering headache when it does.

I had a simple message to deliver. "Hi, this is [-------------], I'm calling to let you know that [----- ------] Elementary is dismissing children at 2:55 p.m. today so [your child] will be home approximately a half-hour early."

This message is met with confusion (as it was by me, since there is no snow anywhere to be seen), annoyance, questions, and sometimes outright hostility. I guess they've never heard the saying "Don't shoot the messenger."

But the most annoying thing my call was met with today was......

.....music.

I may be about to display the fact that I am incredibly un-hip (not that this was EVER a secret), and quite possibly this practice has been around for some time.

But who came up with the brilliant idea to provide a service where people can force you to listen to a song of their choice while you wait for your call to be connected to their phone?

I do not want to wait three minutes just to be told you are not there anyway and leave a message and by the way "If you're a private caller or blocked your number, then un-block it cuz I ain't answering." This was an honest to goodness classy greeting I was met with. But I especially don't want to wait for that greeting while listening to rap for 2 minutes.

This happened three more times. I have nothing personal against rap musicians, or the other artists I was subjected to against my will. It's just not what I personally enjoy listening to.

Don't get me wrong. I love music. I have very eclectic tastes in music and there is very little that I won't listen to. But the point is, I like what I want to listen to not necessarily what you want to listen to. This is equally annoying as music blaring at me from a playlist when I open someone's facebook page or a blog where their playlist is set to auto-play. I appreciate everyone's right to their own musical tastes, but at 1:00 a.m. when Marilyn Manson blares through my speakers unexpectedly, well it's enough to make me pee my pants.

Sneezing makes me pee my pants, but at least that's self inflicted.